I froze.
He was right.
The corner of his lips tugged upward, apparently seeing the frustration on my face.
“I forgot how cute you are when you’re angry,” he teased. “Let’s not throw that coffee in my face, though. I need this,” he said, signaling his face. “This is the money-maker.”
My jaw clenched as I resisted the smile bound to betray me. “I should,” I said. “I should ruin your face and shave your head.”
“You should,” he agreed. “However, if I remember, you like my hair too much for that.”
Images of pulling his hair while he was between my thighs flashed behind my eyes. How soft those strands were, his tongue moving in and out of my center, lips sucking on my clit, my thighs thrown across his shoulders…
One look in his darkened eyes, and I knew he was remembering that too. The smile had slipped, replaced with that sensual seriousness that had once brought me to my knees.
“Let me take you out for drinks,” he said.
I blinked out of the daze and cleared my throat. “What?”
“At the brewery downtown,” he continued. “You can throw all the drinks you want in my face.”
“I would have to drown you to make myself feel better,” I muttered. “Why would I go out for drinks with you?”
“So you can tell me what you’ve been up to these last years,” he said, walking backward toward where his binder lay on the table. “You know, I’m happy to see you with your own company. The work is brilliant—“
“Again, stalker,” I interjected, feeling a smile tug at my lips. “Have you been searching my portfolio?”
“Part of my research,” he said with a shrug. “I’m only sad I missed being there when it happened.”
A solemnness swept the grin off my face. “It wasn’t that exciting,” I said. A lie, of course. I had been a nervous wreck when we’d decided to create our company. I’d saved and printed out mine and Ezzie’s first texts back and forth about it, framed our first contract, and even refused to get rid of the first few drafts of our logo.
Gavin stepped back over my way, set his binder on the table, and then reached his hand to mine. My cheeks heated. I looked at our entwined hands, staring at the freckles on his skin as his fingers lay atop my slender ones.
“Liar,” he accused, and I scoffed at his blatancy, glancing back up at him.
“Okay,” I said. “So, it was exciting, sure. But not so much that you missed out on something special by not being here.”
Our eyes met for a long while, and I could see his curiosity in them.
“Let me take you out for drinks,” he repeated.
“You’re really pushing this, aren’t you?”
“I want to know everything I missed,” he said.
Sunlight bounced off the ring on my opposite hand. It was just drinks.Daytimedrinks. It wasn’t dinner. It wasn’t going back to his place. It was perfectly innocent drinks. Two friends catching up. That was it.
The way my heart was tumbling over just his hand on mine said otherwise.
“No ulterior motives?” I asked.
His knuckle flicked playfully under my chin, dimple appearing in his smirk. “Not unless you ask for it.”
My door opened then, making my heart skip as reality plunged between us. I had forgotten where we were, that there were even other people in the universe.
Ezzie paused in the door, delight and surprise written all over her face. “Well,” she said. “I see our client found his way to the meeting after all.”
I could only imagine how we looked. Laughing. Our hands entwined. His flicking my chin and standing mere inches from me.
